Because of Winn-Dixie

 This week for my short classic I read Because of Winn-Dixie. This book has the most amazing first line, which is “My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice, and two tomatoes and I came back with a dog.”  It's really awesome. The girl narrating is a 10-year-old named Opal, who finds a dog, Winn-Dixie, at the grocery store, and decides to adopt it. The dog, Winn-dixie, gives Opal the courage to ask her dad 10 things about her mom, who left both of them when she was three. The author also shows Opal trying to survive in a new town, and being introduced to a whole bunch of new strange people. This books is really great, and I definitely see why it is being called a young modern classic. Even though this book is probably beneath our reading level, it's definitely worth reading, especially if you love dogs.